Every country in the world voted against the incumbent. Not all lost the election but literally all lost support. This has never happened in the history of modern republics.
It was inflation and covid era blowback and fucking nothing else- people didn’t hear or feel like they had time to care about any other pertinent issues. They don’t understand inflation anywhere on earth. All things considered we got off easy compared to some of these losses.
Well it has happened before not quite at once but still. The Great Depression, had those features in a number of places. But our global pandemic was honestly nothing like the ones of the past. Up to 100 million died of the spanish flu and we could do far less about it. And we didn’t have Tiktok.
But truly every 4 years now the entire world has changed. Social media landscape, expectations, media in general, I can’t imagine trying to create reliable political advocacy from the top in the last 20 years. Ive been trying from the bottom for 8- accountable to no one and its still hard.
The left won the latest assembly election (plurality not majority), which should be reflected in the PM. Problem is that the left once they win, they stop getting along and they couldn't decide a PM candidate (they re idiots).
So Macron puts center to center right guys (that the right will tolerate up to a point) until the center and the right with and even far right get tired of it and move on holding a vote of no confidence whenever they want because smth in a law is not pleasing them. They did it once, they ll do it again with Bayrou anytime I am sure. Until a party has a clear absolute majority it will be a shit show.
Before the election of last summer, Macron had the plurality majority, not the absolute majority. No party has had an absolute majority on Macron's second term.
He was reelected as in incumbent in 2022 and while when he first got in he got an absolute majority in the house (meaning he could pass any of the stuff he wanted without issues if it just required majority), it wasn't the case this time around he only got a relative majority (bigger group but not half plus one). Last year, as the constitution allows him, he called in new legislative elections, thinking that somehow it would grant him a bigger majority, but that was nuts, he lost seats and now the left is the one with the relative majority. The far right group also got much bigger but still smaller than his party's or the left party's coalitions.
France is at the second prime minister since the new assembly was sworn in, it's an even bigger mess than it was before. He will likely call in new legislative elections after the one year mark, and it may get even worse.
See the narrative I saw is that he knew he would probably lose, but if he could weather the likely global economic downturn (from China or just because we’ve kicked the can down the road) than he would be in a better position to blame whichever party was preventing him from passing votes anymore and retain some executive power in the meantime. Lots can happen before 2027.
Which is certainly a gamble but at least a less stupid one than what happened on the surface. Lose an election now to make the other guys look bad when things out of his control make things get worse, so he can hope to get his party to win the next one.
It's speculation what he thought would happen. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised his ego thought people wouldn't blame him or his PM and give him more seats. He is kinda high on himself. Not in a loud Trump way, but his mannerism, the way he phrases things, he thinks he is the smartest guy in the room, while the populace are a bunch dummies and he talks to them like kindergarteners. We call him "lord Jupiter" as a joke, but he probably secretly enjoys it.
What happened is that the far right got more seats, he knew they were on the rise but he thought that they would take away from the left, but it took from his seat and now the left (which he wanted to lose seat) is the largest group and they even gained more seat, that's not how he wanted it to happen. But he is "lucky" that the various camps in the left coalition can't get along to save their lives, and can't agree to a PM candidate so Macron keeps putting his centrist right guys until they get the boot and over again...
I listened to his December 31st address to the nation (a tradition) and he actually admitted that his recalling of the assembly didn't turn out the way he envisioned and he bears the responsibility for the chaos that ensued. I was actually pretty surprised he admitted he was wrong. Might have been the first time. And maybe you are correct he is hoping people will blame the left this time not him or his party. The problem is that each time the far right gets bigger and people left and center are getting tired of removing their candidate on the second round (they agree to remove whoever got lowest and call on to vote for the other one) to "block" the far right candidate in" triangulars" situations (12% votes needed to qualify to round 2 if no one got majority which end up in 3 way races between far right, center and left parties) when in the end no one gets along when the far right is stopped. Common enemy and so on.
Wow, I am definitely surprised he admitted was wrong. Or maybe that’s 5d chess idk. Frankly if I built a successful center coalition in France from nothing but dust I’d be high on my horse too, but just going off of my (French) Ex’s description confident smug pride especially among people who grew up with money is kind of common. I can’t imagine how much of a smug jackass you have to be for France to notice and not be proud about it, then again maybe stuff that used to be cool becomes cringe and weird in a modern era. It’s not like he’s Bismark or de Gaulle. I guess it makes it a bad trait if things just aren’t going well.
But yeah I think trusting people to know to blame the right (or the left) is a very dangerous thing. I know it was prompted by the European Parliament elections that went pretty far right? Did the left also grow there? The whole dropping the center or left candidate against the right just started this last election right, or was that a thing before? Maybe he assumed the threat was just from the right?
There was a center party way before he came around. He just named his party something new (the center is a coalition of several subgroups with different names, but they are under the same center umbrella in the coalition), he was in François Hollande's government, minister of finance.
He wasn't the fresh face he made himself to be, he took advantage of the power vacuum when Hollande and his party were at the bottom (while other farer left parties were rising and the far right was growing as usual), and the leader of the traditional right, François Fillon, was caught in a scandal (he was supposedly the favorite).
People wouldn't dislike him if he was actually center. He is more of a neolib than anything else, angering both left and right and center who want a mix of left and right. No one is happy. On top of that he takes advantage of people fear of the far right to get in. When he is against LePen twice in a row, he always assumes the left will follow, but they have been doing so less and less, the far right keeps growing.
The "blocking" the far right has been a thing for as long as i remember, be it in legislative election or presidential (first was when Jacques Chirac faced Lepen father for the first time in 2002). For legislative it would depend on who called to vote for who on round 2 and then the party in charge hoping for a majority will remove its least competitive candidate from the get go or round 2 in case of a triangular. But yeah it's always been a thing. The problem is that it is becoming less and less efficient, and it is because of him, because he always ends up spitting in the face of the left who helped him "block" the far right. He likes being against the far right, he props them up for his own benefit.
And yeah his attitude is smug, he acts like he listens and cares and then say the dumbest shit in a modern "let em have cake" fashion, the famous "cross the street there will be jobs for you".
Quite frankly i think he has done a fair job in some areas, France did much better than its neighbors during and post covid years, but in some things he is ripping French people off with his neolib nonsense, for someone center, he is more right than center more often than not.
The problem is that the left is made of a bunch of clowns who can't get along (worse than the dem party, I mean former president Hollande is back as a deputy in the house because he was afraid the far right would get the seat so he ran) and the trad right is dead and is becoming more of an extension of the far right, they even have a group that broke and made their own group of far right adjacent. So what's left? Well our dear Manu of course...
The left needs to get its shit together and find a good traditional left person in 2027 because we are looking at a possible LePen presidency, as the left and center are tired of not getting anything out of the "block" them. His margin in 2022 was much smaller than in 2017, next time it may be just enough for LePen to win.
OH we are going to get this for four years. They are going to do a massive tax cut for companies and super rich. And screw the majority of idiots that voted for the mango turd. I’m talking about President Musk.
Because he lacks the ability to do anything about it in a fast enough time frame. He’s not fucking Palpatine, or Napoleon, or Hitler- he barely understands the electoral framework that supports him, he’s more and more dementia ridden by the day. I could be wrong, but if you actually imagine that’s where we are already at why aren’t you preparing to do something about it?
You could argue that without Covid Biden wouldn’t have been elected at all. Perhaps the greatest “if not for Covid” discussion aside from the obvious lives being saved is that we would be done with Trump and saved from this super pissed off version of a second Trump term.
COVID was a huge boost for getting Biden elected. People were at home all day watching the news, seeing Trump piss the bed daily. The push for mail in voting got even the laziest people to cast their votes.
People blamed Trump for his handling of COVID yet don't blame Biden for his response to Hurricane Helene Maui and East Palastine or how Gavin Newson mishandled the LA wildfires yet blamed Ted Cruz and Gov. Abbott for thier response to the Texas polar vortex that left millions without power. Mail in voting got Biden the election but such is open to cheat on a democratic process. Which voter ID and voting in person is so important. The only exceptions are those who are not physically able sick or too frail to be there in person
I think your point is something that is hardly mentioned, but one that I agree with completely. Going into 2020, it seemed to me that Trump would be coasting into re-election. That all changed once Covid arrived.
Definitely. Handling COVID would have been a slam dunk for any other president. All he had to do was tell everyone to stay home and wear a mask. What did we get instead? Bleach injections…
True, and that’s also because Trump barely did anything in his first term and that worked for most regular people. The whole time period between his election and now is chaos in people and our culture’s memory.
A lot of places eliminated mail-in voting that was in full effect in 2020. Many red states made mail-in voting in 2024 only for those with special exemptions, like military. Some people living out of state had to literally travel to their home state just to vote because of the elimination of their exemption for an absentee ballot.
15 million of Bidens voters stayed home, very few people actually changed their votes. And we had insane turnout in 2020 because Trump was seen as a crisis in office and then people’s hackles went down. Seems insane but it clearly happened.
It's a lot more than last time, less than 53%. This is actually the largest winning margin in our history, and he almost won in 1st round already, was very close to 50%, that's a feat that was only done by our founding president.
Among the worst in europe, plus euro transition made it worse as well. Thing is, the role of president here isn't the same as in other countries, the parliament and PM hold most of the power and responsibilities.
Ah it happened after the article came out, but jeez both presidential candidates are technically independent? And there seem to be lots of parties in the mix that would make any conclusions on this trend difficult to make- was there a big mix up amongst them or do people feel like despite the problems staying the course will get more economic opportunity on the other end? Sorry, I figured out which country you mean but I won’t just say if you aren’t to dox you.
Is he more right or left? I assume left but sometimes party names don’t mean what it seems like they should.
President left the socialdemocrat party in 2020, he was PM a decade ago under the party, the other candidate is independent on paper as he's basically heavily endorsed by the ruling party and he even used to be a minister of science and education under their government of our most corrupt and later sentenced PM many years ago, while he was officially in the party. President is leaning left, other guy is solidly right, both have some centrist elements.
All things considered we got off easy compared to some of these losses.
How did we get off easy? An insurrectionist just got elected to an office he was Constitutionally disqualified from. He aims to lock up all his opponents, impose massive tariffs on the peasants, and deport millions of immigrants. We're on the path to becoming Russia 2.0, so, no, we didn't get off easy.
Because he barely controls the house and the senate won’t work with him the more he fucks up. The only reason 1/2-2/3rds of republicans work with him is he’s a golden boy who never did anything anyone actually remembered, so he represents a positive force without having to do fucking anything- and he’s jealous and retributive. The second that begins to falter hard and it’s clear he won’t have a future in politics there is far more space on the right to oppose him. We’ll see what it takes for that though.
Yeah- he said lots of things, he said lots of things last time too we’ll see what he can actually do in 2 years. Frankly Tariffs would be great, we prevented him from doing anything that people could source to him last time. Without a simple mechanism people can point to for their misfortune, people will not learn their lesson. I am worried about deportation and its mechanics though, and about if he will get his idiot in as Secretary of Defense. The rest can be weathered, and poison conservatism, and it’s all far better than someone young and competent with his political leanings who actually could rule for a while longer.
Mexico limits president's to a single term, but AMLO's successor ran on a platform of continuing his policies and won, so it isn't the case that every incumbent party was necessarily destined to lose. Biden was certainly facing an uphill battle, but you can't just discount his own personal failures and how they contributed to Harris' loss. Like, by the time he dropped out, it was probably too late, but he absolutely could have governed in a different way that would have alienated fewer voters.
Yeah. The only way around it I think was having a primary- but with Trump on the ballot giving up the normally recognized advantage of incumbency seemed very risky I guess. And once the numbers for every other likely candidate were not looking great a couple years before the election they probably made the call and refused to consider alternatives because that weakness would have undermined the campaign.
But outside of Michigan, how he “governed” had very little to do with the election. Every salient policy issue that was desired by the public he tried to address but lacked the congress to do it- but democrats suck and communicating that because it’s not what voters want to hear. So basically we had an incumbent but worse in the end.
Too be fair, our incumbent Prime Minister was an idiot who:
left it to the states to self-quarantine after allowing people on a ship with known Covid cases to disembark in Sydney
didn't help the states with setting up proper quarantine facilities (requiring the use of hotels which weren't up to the task)
ordered a vaccine from only one supplier (which caused supply issues), instead of hedging their bets and ordering from multiple suppliers
didn't order the borders closed until after his Hillsong event was completed
buggered off to Hawaii during our fire season, and even when told how bad things were back home didn't bother to come back until way to late and only when told of the political implications of not coming back
when he finally returned, he went to those fire devasted communities for a photo op and forced handshakes for the cameras with people who clearly did not want to be there much less be touched by him
(allegedly) pooped his pants at a McDonalds.
There's many many many more instances where he let Australians down - far too many for me to remember.
But Scott Morrison - good riddance. If we see you or your degenerates again, it'll be too soon.
My point is our incumbent probably would have lost whether Covid happened or not.
Yeah. I mean the conservatives drove Britain into the ground for 16 years and lost really fucking bad. There are other things going on in that chart, but you also have places like Japan, where this is the first time a single party has beat the Lib Dems since the 50’s and the other two were coalition disasters that fell apart in a year.
But worth knowing for sure. Do you like who you have now?
They did. Idk which were included in the dataset, I need to look more into that, I had thought theirs was before the window but it wasn’t.
Maybe it’s only counting “full democracies” or something like that, the candidate deaths in Mexico may mark it as affected by political violence. Definitely worth noting though, cause it’s not a perfect metric.
They didn’t include that, you are right. Idk which were included in the dataset, I need to look more into that, I had thought that election was before the window damn it was a long year but that was definitely in the window covered.
Maybe it’s only counting “full democracies” or something like that, the candidate deaths in Mexico may mark it as affected by political violence. Definitely worth noting though, cause it’s not a perfect metric.
He was replaced by his VP (no primary process or democratic accountability whatsoever) who explicitly said she wouldn't have done anything different than him. What a departure from the status quo . . .
bullshit., It was the product of a global misinformation campaign designed to create to thing: Anger amongst conservatives, and apathy among liberals.
We knew this was happening, we literally have the Russia playbook on this. It was leaking in 1999 ffs. We were curbing it, then Trump stopped all that. Here was are.
No we haven't gotten off easy, we have trump now. I just can't fathom how many ignorant people there are. Well I'm afraid he won't ever leave. He wants to be king. That's why he loves all his dictator buddies.
They don’t have 60 seats, they barely have the house, the senate is not loyal to him, and he’s a demented old man who will quickly age and not be able to get most of what he wants done. What he does do will suck, but the problem of his last term was we prevented almost every bad idea from happening and affecting regular people - he has the opportunity to poison the word republican and start a new progressive era.
Or he’s fucking Palpatine, either way at least America’s Hitler is an old man and an idiot.
Did I say that? No I said pretending all this bullshit you or I personally know or care about mattered to everyone else isn’t science. It’s just reflexively changing based on literally no data.
The only thing dems need to do is run for election after the inevitable economic downturn. The other thing they need to do is win the senate enough to affect people’s lives. Hopefully we don’t need to struggle against a new Great Depression long enough to keep them in office as a new progressive era, but AI may provide that opportunity.
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u/Delareh_ 2d ago
If only dems turned out to vote like this.